| | | D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds yesterday endorsed her colleague Brooke Pinto’s campaign for Congress. Last week, Councilmember Charles Allen endorsed fellow colleague Janeese Lewis George for mayor. And in both cases, the response from the political class was a shrug. Bonds, like Pinto, is on Team Moderate. Allen, like Lewis George, is on Team Progressive. As expected. | | Pull back a bit, though, and it reveals something important about our 2026 election cycle: The city for once has a coherent political divide — a two-party system lurking inside the overwhelming Democratic majority. | | That’s a big change. With no partisan differences, and often blurry philosophical ones, local races used to be won on identity, personal style, or plain old vibes. This time, the results are likely to be more emphatic than a normal election. If the electorate chooses the more progressive path on crime, education, and the safety net, it’ll be hard for centrists to dismiss it as just a fluke. Likewise, if voters opt for the middle on those same things, lefties won’t be able to ignore it, either. | | What an irony that it’s all happening as D.C. rolls out ranked choice voting, which was designed to help voters navigate the kind of diverse, politically disparate slate of candidates the city used to have. Now, Lewis George versus Kenyan Mcduffie and Pinto versus Robert White are both races that you don’t have to be a politics geek to map. So: Which team are you on? | |
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| | | | The Alliance Française of Washington, DC invites you to discover the many ways our Gallic friends have influenced the neighborhood of Georgetown. On May 30, join Off the Mall Tours for a 2-hour walk introducing you to how Georgetown played host to French influences including Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette, the first French Ambassador to Washington, and the woman who brought French cooking to American housewives. Part of the AFDC France Forever series. Reserve your place today. |
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| | What D.C.'s Talking About |
| Lordy, Now There’s a Sex Scandal, Too. Police brass were having enough trouble managing the crime-data scandal. Now a former sergeant is out with a self-published book describing on-the-job threesomes, sex in stairwells, and other NSFW details. In fact, Charlotte Djossou’s tell-all overlaps with the other scandal: In a Washington City Paper interview, she identifies Andre Wright as a senior officer with whom she had at least some of the threesomes. Wright, MPD’s former second in command, was served termination papers this week amid allegations of downplaying crime data. | | Will Waymo Really Come to D.C.? After months of criticism over alleged foot-dragging on robotaxis, council member Charles Allen last month finally introduced a bill to legalize autonomous vehicles. But will anyone actually want to set up shop under the rules Allen wants to enact? “This is the most comprehensive and complex AV deployment bill I've seen,” writes Greg Rogers of The Innovation Majority. Rogers calls it “an encouraging start” but also says that the regulations and fees in the law could make it impossible for robotaxi companies to turn a profit here. | | The Real Reality Stars of D.C. Washingtonian’s Tristan Espinozacatches up with The District,the D.C.-based reality series that’s possibly-maybe-sorta coming to television soon. Producers have yet to sell the show, whose premise is that it ignores Capitol Hill and focuses instead on D.C. “industry insiders” with jobs in fields like events marketing. Notably, even in the course of Espinoza’s reporting, cast members dropped out and conflicts abounded. Somebody greenlight this train wreck! | | Conservatives Against Kitsch. The National Civic Art Society’s Justin Shubow is one of the intellectual architects of Donald Trump’s campaign against modern D.C. architecture. That makes his interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro worth your time. Without mentioning any specific project, Shubow urges classical-architecture enthusiasts to insist on actual quality, too: “The last thing we want is kitschy or parody architecture that looks like a Walt Disney set.” | | Finally: Snyder Loses Again! Former Commanders owner Daniel Snyder’s string of bad luck with expensive D.C. acquisitions continues: Urban Turf reports that his River View estate in Alexandria is supposed to come on the market for $49.9 million, a $10 million drop from the $60 million he initially wanted. His other estate, in Potomac, was donated to charity and sold at auction last year for $13 million after initially listing for $50 million. | Did someone forward you this email? To subscribe, visit https://dc.citycast.fm/newsletter | | |
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| | | East Potomac Park, where the Trump administration has ousted the management of a venerable public golf course ahead of what may be a luxury renovation, was established by an 1897 act of Congress. And now — with locals accusing the president of hijacking a public amenity for the rich — that law is front and center in the legal skirmishing over what the administration can and can’t do with the space. But what does it say? Here’s the original: | | An Act Declaring the Potomac Flats a public park, under the name of the Potomac Park. | March 3, 1897 | Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the entire area formerly known as the Potomac Flats and now being reclaimed, together with the tidal reservoirs, be, and the same are hereby, made and declared a public park, under the name of the Potomac Park, and to be forever held and used as a park for the recreation and pleasure of the people. | |
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| | | | | Don't miss your chance to claim a custom-designed tote bag that shows your love for D.C. Join today! |
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| Thanks for reading! If you’re enjoying this newsletter, please sign up to be a City Cast member, just like our newest neighbors did: Barbara F., Stacey G., Marisa Jane L., Amanda M., Laurence D., Elisa O., Nayantara K., Amy J., David L., Virginia A., Jennifer M., Nufar F., Louise R., Joy and Murray Z., Francis C., Kayt S., Sterling S., Jennifer Z., Rosemary W., Marcella B., Ariel G., and Jennifer P. | | Meantime, do you think a luxe golf course is legal under that 1897 law? Are you going to read the MPD sex book? Would you spend $1.2 million for a home that’s older than the White House? I want to know. Drop me a line at mike.schaffer@citycast.fm. | | Did someone forward you this email? To subscribe, visit https://dc.citycast.fm/newsletter | |
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